I was keen to get moving earlier. There were several reasons for this: 1) It is
cooler in the mornings, 2) I think we have more satisfying days if we achieve
more than one goal, 3) our evenings seem to be gobbled up when we get home late
after a late start and 4) there is more time to enjoy our resort pools if we
are home mid-afternoon.
So,
we went via Pancake Lady planning to eat our breakfast on the bus. We hit her peak hour breakfast queue but
finally got our pancakes just in time to hop on the smallest Aquarium bus
yet!! Our plan was to actually purchase
our tickets to Bangkok as I really wanted to secure our seats having learned it
is the peak holiday season. We found our
way to Bus Terminus One and from there hopped on the pink bus (10 Baht) to Bus
Terminus Two from which the big buses depart.
We booked our VIP bus tickets (1058 Baht per adult) for the 1900 bus
which will hopefully get us into Bangkok around 7 AM. You can see various Bus Station photos
below….please note that durians (stinky Asian fruit) are banned on buses!
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| Pink buses are for transport about town and very cheap |
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| Please take note of all the things prohibited on buses. |
Just down the road from the bus terminus is Supercheap. This is a huge Costco like shopping
experience with a Thai flavour. It is
enormous and stocked with items which appear extraordinary to us. Huge 2 kgs tins of biscuits, acres of dried
fish and chillies,
very cheap clothes and shoes, and food stalls both inside and outside the main
building. We all loved checking out the
goods – a really fun activity! Best of
all was the foot massaging machines for 10 Baht and the enthusiastic little
Thai man who demonstrated how to use one and couldn’t contain his smile at our
funny family. We took the pink bus back
to the Old Town. Our next stop was Radsada Pier to investigate boats to Phi Phi
Island.
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| Acres of food in tropic proof thick foil or tins or overpacked by our standards. | |
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|
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| Bags with Karl or Karl with bags! |
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| Foot massager! |
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| All the benefits of foot massaging machines!!! |
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| Even Luke enjoyed the fizzy feet machine! | |
The locals at the market told us the pier bus only came once
an hour. A taxi driver offered to drive
us there for the price of the bus, which we accepted. We looked around the pier which is quite a
long way out of town and sussed out the boat options. The driver had waited for us and we accepted
his offer to drive back to town. He
asked if he could take us via a jewellery shop so he could get a coupon. We quite enjoyed looking at the beautiful pearls
and gold but had no intention of buying.
We were happy to oblige him for his coupon.
As we had set off early, we were in plenty of time to catch
our bus back to Panwa. Annika and I
decided to stay on the bus and head back to the friendly noodle lady for some
more thick rice noodles at Cape Panwa but in doing so, forgot to give the boys
our key. Whoops! Tim and Luke made use of their time swimming
of course but poor Karl sat like a waif at our door. Furthermore, being a Saturday, the bus seem to
finish running early and Annika and I had to walk back. IMHO, 2 kms of walking
is so worth it for some thick rice noodles in delicious soup!!!!
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| I'll dream of these noodles forever! |
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| Little table and mat and our food! |
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| We can never tire of the view from the Promenade. |
It
is hard to comprehend the usual busy-ness of this time of year back in
Australia where the shops and traffic are mayhem. I am usually rushing to pack
and organise our camping gear for a 2 week road trip somewhere and get ready
for family Christmas celebrations. We
have had a different type of rush this year and it isn’t the ordinary one. I have missed the Christmas carols and
Christmas baking and various Christmas crafts but no doubt those “traditional”
activities will re-enter our life next year and we’ll reflect on our rather
different Thai Christmas.
Whilst we were in the lower pool, the magnificent 150 metre
one, the dark storm clouds drifted over.
Within no time the bright day turned into a terrific downpour, typical
of the tropics. There is nothing like a
good tropical storm when you know you can shelter and enjoy it. All those poor people on their mopeds don
ponchos and just keep on riding.
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| Sensational afternoon tropical rain from the comfort of our balcony. |
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